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Lymm AC members enjoy the Barbel Fish-In July 2012

A total of 22 anglers and 10 mentors attend the first of two Barbel fish-ins on the clubs River Severn stretch at Atcham. The events are aimed at giving river novices the chance to hook into their first barbel and experience the tremendous fight you get in the flow of a river like the Severn. Each novice is allocated a mentor for the day and the pegs at Atcham are allocated to give them the best chance of a barbel. It’s also a great social event allowing club members the chance to meet up and enjoy a chat over the famous BBQ which is expertly run by Bill Last & Phil Hatton.

The event starts with a social meet and greet at the BBQ.

Bill tends to the BBQ, catering for over 30 hungry members.

The session was introduced by Graeme and Cliff and the message of the day was ‘enjoy it and have fun’. The avid barbel hunters made their way to pre-allocated pegs along with their mentors who every year freely give up their time to help the river newbies.

Newbie Ged with mentors Ash, Phil, Nev and Bill.

This year it was decided that the right hand field on the upper stream section was to be host to all the river novices and those who’d fished the Severn before would settle into pegs on the left hand field, this worked very well allowing the organisers to get around and check everyone was OK and more importantly enjoying themselves!!

Pre-allocated pegs ensured everyone had a fair chance of a bertie barbel.

Richard & Wayne in Poachers field, having took part last year have never looked back and have stuck to river fishing ever since!! Nice shorts but that sunburn has got to hurt!!

Also new to this years event was the use of ‘Duffers’ peg 9 which traditionally had nearly always produced for most anglers throughout the season. Bill, having worked hard on the BBQ, was placed in charge of Duffers and after setting his rods up started rotating the peg amongst the newbies, the first of which was Liam and dad Will.

Soon after Duffers started to produce the goods and Liam was delighted to catch his first barbel at around 5lb followed by one for Will and yet another for Liam before they handed over the peg to Bob who’d attended the last three fish-ins without a barbel in the net.

Liam with his first of two barbel…

Liam after safely returning his first of two barbel on Duffers peg.

Not to be out-done dad Will with his first Severn barbel…

Sadly the forecast of cloud with occasional sunny spells was way off the mark and as the sun beat down on the enthusiastic members it became apparent that a daylight barbel was unlikely happen. Undeterred they continued to fish enthusiastically and waited for the sun to go down hoping the evening session would encourage the barbel to start feeding on all the free offerings that gone in during the afternoon.

It’s a waiting game when the barbel aren’t playing ball.

George enjoys the river experience albeit a bit too quiet on the barbel front.

Sorry Tommy foul hooked Salmon Par don’t count at a Barbel fish-in!!

Gareth saves a certain blank with a nice chub!!

As darkness fell it became clear the barbel had switched off but as some anglers resided themselves to a blank session they all agreed it had been a fantastic day out on the river, all the newbies had learned how to target the barbel and all said they’d return to do battle another day. A big thank you to all who attended the fish-in and especially the mentors who freely gave up their time and knowledge to help the new lads who can now go on to enjoy the fantastic sport available in our river stretches.

With Septembers event fully booked and a reserve list in operation we’ll leave you with a few more photo’s from this great event in the club calendar.